Revisiting reviews - the tech I'm still using
Having written reviews for GBAtemp since mid-2017, I’ve managed to accumulate a sizeable stash of games and random tech. Though I try to be thorough when writing the initial reviews, one factor I can never fully account for is how something will stand the test of time. There’s plenty of cool stuff that just gets put to the sidelines a week or two after finishing up the initial coverage, so I wanted to take some time to talk about those that still find their way onto my desk or into my bag.
To make this post a bit more readable, I’ll break it down into a few sections, so feel free to jump ahead if there’s something you’re particularly interested in.
The Keyboard Rotation
Opening with a topic I’m sure people love to see on the front page, keyboards are a personal favourite of mine. What might surprise you is that I actually use most of the keyboards I’ve reviewed, swapping them out as I fancy a change or a fresh typing feel to reinvigorate my typing spirit. Some have been passed onto family in an attempt to spark a passion they don’t yet know they have, with Vissles’ LP85 and NuPhy’s Halo96 both sitting with my sister at the moment. I’ve not quite turned her to the hobby, but she does at least enjoy using them.
My current keyboard rotation primarily revolves around two custom boards of my own (one making use of a keycap set NuPhy sent along with the Field75 keyboard!), alongside my various ASUS keyboards, the aforementioned Field75 from NuPhy, and the Ultimate Hacking Keyboard v2. The UHK is the one that stands out to me just for how easy it is to throw together a quick macro on the fly, and its sheer versatility. It’s the keyboard I tend to pull out for work, especially for tasks that require a lot of repetition like refactoring chunks of code. Since my initial review, Ultimate Gadget Labs have been busy and released a raiser for the keyboard to allow for a more personally-tailored typing experience. Though I don't yet have this, it's something I'm quite excited to pick up down the line.
NuPhy’s Air75 v2 is something I do want to give a bit of a mention to as well. While it’s not necessarily a part of my regular rotation, it is a really nice board to have available as an ultra-portable go-to when I’m tight on bag space. It’s another one that does well in a working environment, especially as somebody who works from a laptop. Just being able to slap it over the built-in keyboard is fantastic in terms of desk space optimisation.
I know this post is talking about things I've already reviewed... But you can't expect me to talk about keyboards and not mention this thing...
Tech Oddities
If you've seen my editorials in the past, you may know I have a particular interest in talking about weird and fun tech, and there really is nothing I love more than multi-screened devices. The Zephyrus and Surface Duo are two such devices I’ve written about in the past, offering a multi-screened laptop and phone experience respectively. Though I have since shifted my focus to a desktop setup, which I’ll wrap back around to talk about later, the Zephyrus Duo 16 is a device I just can’t let go of. An ultrawide display sitting under a more standard 16:10 screen is significantly more handy than you might expect. When I’m not needing it for anything in particular it generally holds my emails and messages. Outside of this though, you can have it act as the lower screen for Cemu or Citra, a tracker for a game randomiser (Wind Waker works really well for this), a timeline for video editing, or just your build messages and other IDE tidbits to keep your main display less cluttered for programming. It’s easy to write something like this off as a gimmick, but it’s a gimmick I’ve found tremendously useful in the almost two years I’ve had it. You do pay a hefty sum for the gimmick at £2700 (at the time I bought it anyway), so it’s at least nice to see that it’s not conked out and doing as well now as when I picked it up.
While it may share in the two-screened glory, the Surface Duo is an entirely different beast, ultimately becoming my go-to for reading manga above all else. Its two 4:3 5.6-inch OLED displays are a stellar fit for Tachiyomi, with the software even taking the screen gap into account when drawing two pages at once. If I do get tired of looking at smaller text, I also have the option of rotating the system and showing a single page over both screens. This works better than you might think, with the device being almost identical in size to Apple’s iPad Mini 6 when laid flat.
Of course there is more than just reading on offer, and I really am looking forward to pushing this as an emulation handheld soon, once Cube Sugar’s Surface Duo controller ships (hopefully) early into this year. With a Snapdragon 855 under the hood, it’s more than capable of handling up to GameCube games, with DS emulation being the obvious point of excitement. I won’t write too much more on this since I plan to cover it more thoroughly once I have it in hand, but suffice to say my expectations are high to make the most of this niche phone. I do recommend keeping an eye on eBay if you are interested in the Surface Duo. I bought mine directly from Microsoft just before the Duo 2 was launched for around £700, but nowadays it goes for around half that, and as low as £200 on occasion. It is lacking some fairly basic features you’d want in a modern phone (NFC, 5G, and a half-decent camera to name a few), but you’re unlikely to find a more interesting device to play with at that price.
With 2024 just kicking off I’m excited to see what else is to come in the multi-screened space, with AYANEO’s Flip DS being something I’m eager to get my hands on. There is more to a unique device than just having multiple screens though, and ASUS’ ROG Flow Z13 is something that just keeps finding its way back onto my desk. A Surface form factor with some fairly hefty specs to back it up, I picked one up around this time last year and really loved how easy it was to place around. Being able to detach the keyboard at will makes for an incredibly portable and versatile all in one display. I did have bigger plans for it as something I could take with me on long commutes to play games without having to carry a hefty laptop, but the reality of it ended up being a little more tame. I wouldn’t say it’s quite as bad as dubbing it a YouTube machine, but I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t its main use. It definitely still has a place as something you can hook up to another monitor for a really great multi-screen game experience, again looking at Cemu and Citra. Having said that, I really do have better ways of going about such emulation.
Interesting tech isn’t always on the powerful side of the spectrum though, and that really holds true when looking at something like the reMarkable 2. Originally reviewing it in February of 2021 and revisiting it last year with the Type Folio release, it’s been a mainstay both on my desk and in my bag from day one. I love writing and I love e-ink tech. It’s a match made in heaven for me. The software has had a bit of a rocky road, as I mentioned in my Type Folio review, but as it is now you really do get a great focused writing experience. Is it priced too highly? I think it probably is, but I also think a large chunk of that comes down to the fact there’s no way to try the device before putting money down. After my time reviewing it, I would’ve put down the £500 or so they were asking for the tablet, case, and pen. I really stand by it, but I also recognise that I couldn’t have done that had I not had that hands on experience. I love it, and it’s for sure passed the test of time. It’s just a tough sell to any majority, and I fully accept that I am no part of such majorities.
A Messy Desk
I touched on this a bit earlier into the post, but since moving across the UK for a job mid-2023, I’ve been a much heavier desktop user. Though my desk (worth mentioning that this desk is still the same Arozzi desk I’ve had since 2019 in the spirit of the post) is consistently a cluttered mess, there are some real mainstays that manage to find themselves present more often than not.
Right at the top of this list is Huion’s Kamvas Pro 13, and it is an absolute belter of a setup. Making use of a heavy-based VESA monitor stand that has you mount a monitor to a pole alongside a laptop tray that’s supposed to be attached to an arm of its own, I have a rudimentary dual screen gaming setup. It’s a situation I really couldn’t do with anything else, outside of maybe the Flow Z13 I mentioned earlier. There is a reason I prefer using the Kamvas Pro though, and it mostly comes down the matte display and pen-on-screen feel. Using a stylus on a glossy screen is fine, but in my mind it feels wrong. It’s always in the back of my mind that I’m scratching the screen, and it all slides around a bit too much. The matte feel is perfection. Even if the extent of my current use is tapping moves and sliding party members to swap them around in Pokemon Omega Ruby, it feels fantastic. I said in my original review that displays like these have merit even for non-artists, and that really has held true. My only real sadness is that there isn’t a DS emulator out at the moment that allows you to split your screens to two separate windows like you can with Citra and Cemu. The day that drops, this setup will be complete. I will tack on the end of this paragraph by saying if you do happen to have a graphics tablet, be careful with your pen. I dropped mine at an awkward angle and the nib broke off, leaving me in a difficult position to remove it. I have a few plans as to how to tackle this down the line (hot glue being the best idea in my head) but with a spare pen it's less of a concern at the moment. While I really do love the tablet and the feel of the pen, I do wish there were a simple way of opening them up when things like this happen.
I want to give a brief shoutout to my portable gaming monitors here too. Though I do have a hefty monitor out most of the time, I do sometimes put it away when needing more desk space. And it’s also these times when my two ROG Strix monitors come into play. I reviewed the 15 inch model as a loan unit from ASUS, but ended up buying one down the line after how much I enjoyed using it. It did end up developing a fault, resulting in me having to send it back, but I can say ASUS customer service was nothing but helpful, and got me another one sent out pretty much as soon as they received the defective unit. The new one’s been fine, and I even ended up picking up the larger 17 inch variant on eBay after spotting it for just £250. I’m a sucker for a deal, and a portable 17 inch display with great colours and 240hz refresh rate was something I couldn't pass up. You can definitely find cheaper portable monitors out there, but I’m happy with what I have. Portable monitors are something I would encourage people to look into; they’re versatile and can go a long way in boosting your on the go productivity. I even spotted a 3:2 aspect ratio portable monitor on Amazon US a while back, which is definitely a rarity worthy of further investigation into for those seeking the peak of versatility or just a perfect GBA experience.
The Baggables
Last up on this roundup of old reviews are the smaller items that happen to find their way into my bag wherever I go. Given its function is to provide power in a pinch, it should come as no surprise that I’m still using Shargeek’s Storm 2 power bank. To this day I don’t think I’ve seen another company come close to making as stylish a power bank, but it remains pretty poor value for somebody who just wants something reliable. Don’t get me wrong, this is a reliable power bank… Except for when it isn’t. It still doesn’t work with the ROG Ally, and I’ve noticed quirks when charging certain laptops. With my 2019 Razer Blade Stealth, it’s perfectly happy to pump out 65W or more when the laptop is on, but if it’s off, it won’t do more than 10W. It’s great to have the screen to be able to identify these quirks, but I think I would prefer for them to just not exist in the first place.
The other thing I tend to throw in my bag is my Switch, and while the Switch itself isn’t really anything of interest, my controller of choice might well be. Retroflag’s creatively-titled “Handheld Controller for Switch” is bar none the best accessory I own for the console. Since December of 2022 a Joy Con hasn’t slid its way into my OLED Switch’s rails and I couldn’t be happier for that fact. Though aesthetics are obviously a subjective point, it was love at first sight for me. Translucent purple is my jam, and my only real complaint remains the odd choice for a matte finish face buttons. The sticks feel as good as the first day I used them with the controller making use of hall sensors, and with features like turbo and gyro built-in, along with it being recognised as an official Pro Controller in the Switch’s software, it is something I will continue to recommend. Though it does have some more recent competition in the Nitro Deck, Retroflag’s attempt at a controller grip is the one I’ll be using for the foreseeable future.
While on the topic of Retroflag, I will also give an honourable mention to their NES-themed SSD enclosures. I reviewed these in 2021 and they really did what they said on the tin. They still work great and look great, with the only blemish being that one of the cartridges has a screw loose. It still holds the SSD in fine though, so no complaints from me. I’d love to see this design revisited with a USB C port for the outer enclosure, but it’s not as though I’m short on USB 3.0 Micro B cables. I still have plenty of ageing external drives that also use it, so it’s not much hassle to be swapping them around.
My final mention goes out to the bag I’ve been throwing all this stuff into, a “gaming backpack” that unfortunately doesn’t seem to be in production anymore: Targus’ Strike backpack. This is something I’ve been using since I got it in 2021, and it’s just got the job done. It’s big, it’s got ample compartments for keyboards, mice, hard drives, and all that jazz. I even use the external water bottle mesh to store my umbrella, it’s perfect for me. It’s done me well for just under three years now with no signs of wear. I can naturally only speak to my own experiences, but they’ve been nothing but positive.
A Bit in Closing
To be quite honest, I really enjoy a lot of what I cover on the site, and that enjoyment is a lot of the reason why I write about things. I hope that to some extent I can spread my enthusiasm in a way that doesn’t just sound like I’m trying to upsell you on the latest and weirdest tech. Having said that, I’d be interested to hear any thoughts in regards to reviews and general tech coverage on the site. Is this kind of post-review roundup something people would be interested in seeing more of? Would you want to see a more detailed followup at a set time after the initial review of the more major players? I’m by no means a professional, but I enjoy what I do here. If I can make it better, I do certainly want to.
